Haryana govt appoints RERA heads to help home buyers and developers

The Haryana government has finally appointed two chairpersons for the duo RERA benches. The State government has appointed KK Khandelwal and Rajan Gupta for the positions; clearing the decks for the much-awaited authorities to become fully functional.

As per report, the two are IAS officers. A selection committee, headed by Justice Surya Kant of the Punjab and Haryana high court, had shortlisted 1985-batch officer Khandelwal and retired IAS officer KK Jalan for the Gurgaon bench, and 1983-batch officer Gupta and retired district and sessions judge AKS Pawar for the Panchkula bench. The final selection was done by the chief minister.

KK Khandelwal, additional chief secretary (education) has been appointed as the head of Gurgaon bench, while Rajan Gupta, will head Panchkula bench, which will deal with RERA cases of the rest of Haryana.

Welcoming the move, Vineet Relia Managing Director SARE Homes said, “I take this opportunity to congratulate Mr. Khandelwal as he takes over as Chairman, Gurgaon, RERA. Both the developers as well as buyers in Gurgaon will be benefiting under RERA as the city is home to plenty of real estate projects and also many aspiring home buyers. Under his guidance, we look forward to smooth functioning of RERA,”

The Haryana government had come up with the draft RERA rules in April and notified H-RERA in July. According to the guidelines, the state government had to appoint the chairperson(s) within three months of the notification and the chairpersons will have tenure of five years.

Anupam Varshney, head (sales and marketing), Vatika Limited, said, "The city is home to numerous real estate projects with thousands of investors and homebuyers. Both developers and buyers will be benefit from the Rera."

NAREDCO vice-chairperson Praveen Jain said both the officers (Khandelwal and Gupta) were good and hoped the authorities would effectively resolve grievances of buyers as well as developers.

However, he added that a single bench of Rera with its office in Gurgaon would have been much better. "There was no need for two benches. Most of the projects and buyers in Haryana are from Gurgaon, so it would have been better to have a single bench," Jain said.